As dawn began to break, Hyuga Hinata woke up. Usually, she got up even earlier. Her father always sternly insisted that she rise early to practice the Gentle Fist, for the day's plans were best laid in the morning.
But today was different. She desperately wished she were still at home and that everything that had happened was just a dream. Yet when she opened her eyes, all she saw was the ceiling of the carriage.
A small tea table sat beside her sleeping bag. The empty bowl she had left behind after eating yesterday was gone, and now there were other things laid out on it.
She had just crawled out of her sleeping bag when she heard Uchiha Jie's voice.
"Wig, false eyelashes, and colored contacts. Put those on yourself, then I'll do your makeup."
It wasn't as if he could act like a real kidnapper and lock Hinata in a cage so she could never get out.
They might have to live together for quite some time, so naturally, she needed to be able to walk around in the sunlight. That meant carefully changing her appearance so the shinobi and civilians wouldn't recognize the girl beside him as the kidnapped Hinata.
The colored contacts were ordinary black ones. They were easy to put in, wouldn't affect her Byakugan's vision, and did a good job of concealing her famously recognizable eyes.
But when Hinata held the purple wig, she didn't know what to do. Her own hair wasn't short, and even if she managed to put the wig on over it, she would look very strange.
"Forget it. Let's leave it like this."
In the end, even Uchiha Jie gave up. He put the wig back in the scroll, picked up the eyebrow pencil and other makeup from the table, and sat across from Hinata to paint her face.
The carriage continued to rattle along the road. Before long, Uchiha Jie put down his tools and clapped his hands softly.
"Done." He looked over his handiwork and smiled brightly.
Hinata couldn't see her own face, but Uchiha Jie thoughtfully produced a small mirror and held it out to her.
"I-is this really me?"
Looking at the face in the mirror, Hinata hardly recognized herself. Could this really be her? She looked so cute it was almost unbelievable.
Her lashes curled slightly upward, and the eyeliner he had drawn made her eyes look as clear as water. Her eyebrows were a little thicker, a faint blush colored her cheeks, and her lips were painted a pale purple.
Her bangs no longer fell neatly over her forehead. Instead, they were swept diagonally to one side, where they gathered together. A red ribbon tied her hair into a little ponytail at the back of her head, and somehow, a pair of blue-green earrings had appeared on her exposed ears.
Uchiha Jie took out a set of clothes and laid them in the carriage. Then he lifted the curtain and climbed down.
Hinata picked up the clothes and unfolded them. Her cheeks immediately flushed.
She usually only had a few outfits: a white casual outfit for home, and thick trousers and a jacket for school. She liked hiding inside her clothes, as if that would keep people from noticing her.
But the clothes before her weren't the thick garments she knew. Instead, they were a red dress embroidered with pale purple flowers, a child-sized outfit that fit her perfectly.
There was also a pair of pale purple tabi socks, a pair of wooden sandals, and a little toy ninja sword that looked exactly like the one she had wanted to give Sister Yue.
"Hurry up!"
Uchiha Jie's voice came from the driver's seat at the front of the carriage.
"I'll buy you underwear once we get to the village. If you don't hurry, I'll come in and help you get dressed."
Hinata gritted her teeth, took off the clothes she had been wearing since yesterday, and put on the light dress. Then she fastened the ninja sword at her waist.
"I-I'm dressed." She sat in the corner of the carriage, hugging her knees, her voice barely audible.
Uchiha Jie appeared in the carriage in an instant. He looked Hinata up and down, now dressed in her new outfit, and nodded softly.
"Mm. Yue's clothes from when she was little suit you pretty well," he remarked.
"Yue? Sister Yue?" At the familiar name, Hinata abruptly raised her head and looked at Uchiha Jie, then down at her clothes.
They certainly weren't new. They didn't have the scent of brand-new clothes, the hem was a little frayed, and the purple embroidery seemed slightly faded.
"These are Sister Yue's clothes from when she was little?" she asked, clearly finding it hard to believe. "But Sister Yue loves wearing white. She hates clothes in this color."
Uchiha Jie didn't answer. Instead, he asked, "Do you know Hyuga Yue?"
Hinata stared at him with wide eyes. Though she didn't say it aloud, her expression clearly said, I don't know her. Do you?
"I've known Yue since I was even younger than you." Uchiha Jie smiled softly, his gaze traveling from Hinata's head to her feet.
As he looked at her, he seemed to sink into his memories.
"From the moment she entered the Ninja Academy, she was always at the top of the class. Whether it was learning to mold chakra, throwing ninja tools, the Three Body Technique, or even studying the Will of Fire, I couldn't keep up with her."
"She loved wearing red, and sometimes pink. She'd tie her hair up with a purple ribbon, and she also liked copying our homeroom teacher by painting her fingernails and toenails purple."
"She laughed a lot, and so did I. Our classmates were jealous of our smiles, so they gave us a nickname. Something like 'the laughing sisters.'"
"She was the older sister, and I was the younger one..."
Uchiha Jie's expression turned strange.
"Because I was an Uchiha who'd been defeated by the Hyuga Clan."
"But that didn't matter. She also told really funny jokes and could always make me laugh. Sometimes, even Lu Yu, who used to lie face-down in the very corner of the classroom, couldn't help laughing."
"We skipped class together, too. That awful old man spent the whole day making us read aloud from the textbook. He never explained anything or cared whether we actually understood it. Half the class would run off during that lesson."
"We trained together. Her Gentle Fist improved every day, while my Taijutsu was terrible. She wanted to teach me some Gentle Fist techniques, but my Sharingan couldn't see the chakra points."
"Later, an elder from my clan secretly came to give me a ninja sword, so I started training with it. That was the first time I ever beat her."
"Later, she brought a ninja sword too. It was the one at your waist. After that, I couldn't beat her anymore."
Uchiha Jie's expression turned helpless.
"Afterward, the elders in my clan tried all sorts of things, but I had to admit that Yue was more talented than I was. She learned everything faster, and on top of that, my Sharingan still hadn't awakened."
"But one day, she didn't come to school..." Uchiha Jie's voice sank.